


It Already Was

by argle_fraster



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mutually Unrequited, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 10:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6466129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment paused in the Farplane, when the past hangs heavy around both your shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Already Was

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I had written this for the FandomWeekly challenge, hoping that a theme would come up that I could submit it for, but the themes have been really uninspiring lately, so I'm just posting here.

For a long time, time means nothing. In death, ages and lifelines collide together; you can see everything that has happened in snippets and blurs, events you did not witness and times you could never have known. There is time to think and reflect, and you often find yourself thinking of Braska and Jecht; of Yuna and her pilgrimage, but sometimes you are simply part of the stars that paint the never-ending sky, and there is no consciousness. But all of that changes, in a burst of sudden, overwhelming _being_ \- everything changes when Shuyin enters the Farplane.

–

You can see Shuyin, and Vegnagun, but you cannot touch them. The Crimson Squad is there, too, frantic and hurried, and then Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. Around you, there are others, and some manage to materialize into being, but none of you can interfere. Shuyin has a fortress around him pieced together from the Farplane itself, a wall of light and life and _hate_.

You shout, “Yuna, fight!” as she stumbles, on unforgiving ground, and perhaps it has some effect, or perhaps it was lost in the void; it doesn't really matter in the end, because Shuyin is destroyed, and the living beings start to leave the land of the dead, to return to their rightful home.

You see her there, with hair twisted up and falling around her arms. She is older, now, and perhaps wiser. There is a straightness to her shoulders that was not there before – a confidence, surer in her steps. You want to call out for her and you don't, fearful of what it would mean, but she hangs back anyway as the others step through the portal before her.

“I know that you're there,” she says, to the void, without turning around. “I heard your voice, in the battle.”

“How would you remember something like that after so long?” you ask. It is not hard to pull the scattered fragments of yourself together – the effects of Vegnagun are still here, lingering, creating solid form in the mass of stardust that shouldn't exist. It feels slipping on an old, worn pair of gloves, both comfortable and stretched thin.

She does spin, then, and he expected her to be angry and she isn't. “Don't be stupid.”

“Your friends are waiting,” you tell her.

“We fought the aeons, you know,” she says, like she didn't hear you, still the young woman who steals whatever she wants. “They were all… dark, and _wrong_ , and I think it killed Yunie to have to fight them again, but we did it.”

The Farplane sighs around your shoulders, and you aren't sure if it's the air or your exhale, an echo. That's all you are, really: an echo, an old memory, faded and nearly lost.

“They will stay here, now, where they belong,” you say.

“Why could they come back?” she asks, and he hears the question that doesn't tumble from her lips, _why can't you do the same thing?_

“Rikku,” you sigh.

“Why,” she says, not a question, and her voice sounds strained.

“This is a part of life,” you tell her. “Without death, there can be no life.”

She glares at you, lips pursed and drawn. “But I know that's not really true anymore. Look at everything that comes back – the aeons, the feelings in the dresspheres. All that stuff, it's not just stuck here, you know?”

“It should be,” you reply, and add, “It will be, now.”

“Stop pretending like you don't care!” she cries out, hands balled into fists and arms tight at her sides. “Maybe you can do that, because you're _here_ , but it's not so easy for everyone else.”

You don't respond. You can't; there's so little holding you together anymore. The reality shoved back into the Farplane has left you feeling drained and exhausted in a way you can't remember feeling anymore, and every star in your body is tired. Around you, the Farplane is, too. It has been violated by outside forces and thrown off its orbit, the balance undone – it wants to find the equilibrium once more, and you know your time is limited.

A short-lived gift, like so many things are.

She seems agitated by your silence. “I thought about this moment for so long, you know? Forever. I thought of what I would say, and what questions I would ask, and I knew I was stupid, even as I was imagining it, but I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to know. I _needed_ to know.”

Again, you say nothing, and her anger dissipates into a resigned, heavy acceptance.

“Fine,” she says, and turns away from your image. “Whatever. It doesn't matter now, anyway.”

She is almost to the portal – you can feel reality slipping from it, escaping, and the feel of it is overwhelming – when you call out, “Wait.”

Her feet pause, mid-step.

“What did you need to know?” you ask. It's as if it the question is wrenched from your constricted throat, unable to be held back.

“If things had been different,” she says, voice low, “would it have been me?”

A moment, a heartbeat, and you whisper, “It already was.”

You can see the answer in her form – on her skin it ripples, tension dissolving, and her hands unclench. She sighs, and you can almost see the particles in her breath as they become part of the Farplane and cling to her cheeks. You long to reach out and brush them away, to make contact, but you can no longer move the form you've willed back into being. Vegnagun's unnatural hold is unraveling.

“Goodbye, Auron,” she says.

She doesn't say anything else before stepping through the void, and you are glad; the real weight of what hung unspoken between you would have been your death all over again.


End file.
